(RSF/IFEX) – The following is a 25 October 2001 RSF press release: Michel Peyrard and his two Pakistani colleagues soon to be sentenced by an Islamic court According to Rahimullah Yusufzai, journalist for the Pakistani daily The News, the enquiry about the three reporters detained in Afghanistan, Michel Peyrard, Irfan Qureshi and Mukkaram Khan, has […]
(RSF/IFEX) – The following is a 25 October 2001 RSF press release:
Michel Peyrard and his two Pakistani colleagues soon to be sentenced by an Islamic court
According to Rahimullah Yusufzai, journalist for the Pakistani daily The News, the enquiry about the three reporters detained in Afghanistan, Michel Peyrard, Irfan Qureshi and Mukkaram Khan, has been concluded by the Taliban secret services. Their conclusions cannot be released but they will be given to the court, which is going to judge the three men in accordance with Islamic law. It is believed that this court, made up of mullahs, will gather in two or three days’ time. The three journalists will be tried on the same charges, the nature of which is unknown, and should have the right to take a lawyer if they so wish. It seems that the Taliban want to bring the case to completion. If the charge of espionage is upheld, the three men risk the death sentence.
Mollah Zaef, Taliban ambassador in Islamabad, has returned to Afghanistan. The Pakistani journalists’ families, the French authorities and Reporters Without Borders have asked him to intervene in favour of the three journalists’ release. Some people who have influence with the Taliban, particularly mullahs and fundamentalist party leaders, have also been solicited to this end.
The four journalists (including the Japanese reporter recently arrested) are being well-treated. One of their Taliban guards said jokingly that it was necessary to find a solution since they were beginning to cost a lot and that there was no more place to shelter all these journalists. The Taliban have allowed Mukkaram Khan, a journalist and member of a fundamentalist party, to launch the call for prayers.
However, the family of Mukkaram Khan, a native of the Mohmand agency tribal area, has suffered reprisals from the region’s inhabitants. After the journalist was arrested by the Taliban and charged with spying for the Americans, hundreds of people gathered around his home, threatened to burn it down, to expel his family from the tribe and to sentence the journalist in accordance with tribal laws upon his return from Afghanistan. One of Mukkaram Khan’s brothers was forced to take refuge in Peshawar and his family hired armed men to protect their property. In Peshawar, RSF has asked the journalists working for the most popular Urdu newspapers in the region to publish articles explaining that Mukkaram Khan did not help a spy but rather a reporter who wanted to witness Afghanistan’s situation firsthand.
On 9 October, a witness to Michel Peyrard’s arrest confirmed that it occurred when the Paris Match reporter had just crossed the Kabul river. His height, his unfeminine walk and his shoes aroused suspicion. The three men were reportedly beaten by the inhabitants of the tribal area where they were arrested.
